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Submission + - NASA Release Amazing X-ray picture of the sun

Submitted by Anonymous Coward
An anonymous reader writes: NASA has released a picture of the sun taken with high-energy X-rays by its Nuclear Spectroscopic Telescope Array (NuSTAR). From the article: "The sun is too bright for telescopes such as NASA’s Chandra X-ray Observatory, which probably would have been fried by all the X-rays hitting the detector. The mirrors and detectors on NuSTAR, however, have protective coverings that block out much of the onslaught. It’s somewhat analogous to eclipse glasses, which block out enough of the sun’s rays so that you can see the faint, ethereal corona around the sun without irreversibly damaging your eyes from its overwhelming glare."
Books

App Gives You Free Ebooks of Your Paperbacks When You Take a "Shelfie" 131

Posted by samzenpus from the show-us-the-pages dept.
Peter Hudson writes Alan Henry writes on LifeHacker: "Paper books are awesome, but sometimes there's no beating the portability of an ebook on your phone or tablet. If you have a physical book you'd love to read on the go, BitLit may be able to get you an ebook version for free—all you need to do is take a photo of your book case: a 'shelfie.'" CNET notes that it's not quite as useful as it sounds: "As you might expect from a startup in the e-book space, BitLit currently offers a very limited selection -- only about 75,000 books, so the likelihood of a match is pretty slim. Browsing the library, I recognized very few mainstream authors."
Cellphones

Samsung Galaxy Note Edge Review 75

Posted by samzenpus from the check-it-out dept.
MojoKid writes Differentiation is difficult in the smartphone market these days. Larger screens, faster processors, additional sensors and higher resolution cameras, all are nice upgrades but are only iterative, especially when you consider the deluge of products that come to market. True innovation is coming along with less frequency and Samsung, more so perhaps than some other players, is guilty of punching out so many different phone models that it's hard not to gloss over new releases. However, the new Samsung Galaxy Note Edge may offer something truly useful and innovative with its supplementary 160 pixel curved edge display. The Note Edge is based on the same internal platform as the Galaxy Note 4, and features a 2.7GHz Qualcomm Snapdragon 805 SoC with Adreno 420 graphics and 3GB of RAM. What makes the Galaxy Note Edge so different from virtually all other smartphones on the market is its curved edge display and what Samsung calls its "revolving UI" that offers app shortcuts, status updates, data feeds and features all on its own, but integrated with the rest of the UI on the primary display. You can cycle through various "edge panels" as Samsung calls them, like shortcuts to your favorite apps, a Twitter ticker, news feeds, and a tools panel for quick access to the alarm clock, stop-watch, a flashlight app, audio recorder and even a digital ruler. The Galaxy Note Edge may not be for everyone, but Samsung actually took curved display technology and built something useful out of it."
Science

Scientists Say the Future Looks Bleak For Our Bones 115

Posted by samzenpus from the no-bones-about-it dept.
HughPickens.com writes Nicholas St. Fluer reports at The Atlantic that according to researchers, our convenient, sedentary way of life is making our bones weak foretelling a future with increasing fractures, breaks, and osteoporosis. For thousands of years, hunter-gatherers trekked on strenuous ventures for food with dense skeletons supporting their movements and a new study pinpoints the origin of weaker bones at the beginning of the Holocene epoch roughly 12,000 years ago, when humans began adopting agriculture. "Modern human skeletons have shifted quite recently towards lighter—more fragile, if you like—bodies. It started when we adopted agriculture. Our diets changed. Our levels of activity changed," says Habiba Chirchir. A second study attributes joint bone weakness to different levels of physical activity in ancient human societies, also related to hunting versus farming.

The team scanned circular cross-sections of seven bones in the upper and lower limb joints in chimpanzees, Bornean orangutans and baboons. They also scanned the same bones in modern and early modern humans as well as Neanderthals, Paranthropus robustus, Australopithecus africanus and other Australopithecines. They then measured the amount of white bone in the scans against the total area to find the trabecular bone density. Crunching the numbers confirmed their visual suspicions. Modern humans had 50 to 75 percent less dense trabecular bone than chimpanzees, and some hominins had bones that were twice as dense compared to those in modern humans. Both studies have implications for modern human health and the importance of physical activity to bone strength. "The lightly-built skeleton of modern humans has a direct and important impact on bone strength and stiffness," says Tim Ryan. That's because lightness can translate to weakness—more broken bones and a higher incidence of osteoporosis and age-related bone loss. The researchers warn that with the deskbound lives that many people lead today, our bones may have become even more brittle than ever before. "We are not challenging our bones with enough loading," says Colin Shaw, "predisposing us to have weaker bones so that, as we age, situations arise where bones are breaking when, previously, they would not have."
Sony

Did North Korea Really Attack Sony? 282

Posted by samzenpus from the who's-to-blame dept.
An anonymous reader writes "Many security experts remain skeptical of North Korea's involvement in the recent Sony hacks. Schneier writes: "Clues in the hackers' attack code seem to point in all directions at once. The FBI points to reused code from previous attacks associated with North Korea, as well as similarities in the networks used to launch the attacks. Korean language in the code also suggests a Korean origin, though not necessarily a North Korean one, since North Koreans use a unique dialect. However you read it, this sort of evidence is circumstantial at best. It's easy to fake, and it's even easier to interpret it incorrectly. In general, it's a situation that rapidly devolves into storytelling, where analysts pick bits and pieces of the "evidence" to suit the narrative they already have worked out in their heads.""
Google

Google Motion Denied In Lawsuit Against Mississippi Attorney General 23

Posted by samzenpus from the take-a-deep-breath dept.
An anonymous reader points out that a judge has called a time-out on a case between Google and Mississippi Attorney General Jim Hood. "A federal judge has denied Google's motion to block enforcement of a subpoena issued by Mississippi Attorney General Jim Hood that seeks information from Google about parts of its operations, including information about advertising for imported prescription drugs. Federal court records also show U.S. District Judge Henry T. Wingate put Google's response to the subpoena on hold until after the new year. Wingate scheduled a Feb. 13 hearing for further discussions on Google's motion. He asked attorneys for both sides to file new briefs in January."
Open Source

Subsurface 4.3 Released 38

Posted by samzenpus from the check-it-out dept.
jones_supa writes "The Subsurface development team proudly announces release 4.3 of the open source divelog and dive planning program, available for all major desktop operating systems. This is the software originally founded by Linus Torvalds, and the development seems to be continuing in great pace. Subsurface now supports flexible filtering of the dive list based on criteria like tags, people or gear. Dive characteristics can now also be copied and pasted to other dives. The dive profile now offers an easy to understand tissue saturation graph that shows tissue saturation at any point during the dive. As another new feature in the dive profile, one can turn on an improved visualization of the gas combinations used during a dive. The dive computer and file format support have also gotten large improvements."

Submission + - North Korean Defector Spills Details On The Country's Elite Hacking Force (businessinsider.com)

Submitted by mattydread23
mattydread23 writes: Business Insider interviewed Jang Se-yul, a North Korean defector who trained in the country's Mirim University alongside some of the hackers who make up its elite Bureau 121 hacking squad. He explains how they train: "They take six 90-minute classes every day, learning different coding languages and operating systems, from C to Linux. Jang says a lot of time was spent dissecting Microsoft programs, like the Windows operating system, and how to attack the overall computer IT systems of enemy countries like the US or South Korea." He also explains that these hackers are among the elite in North Korea, and even though they have unfiltered information about the outside world that their countrymen lack, most of them would never dream of leaving.
United Kingdom

UK Man Arrested Over "Offensive" Tweet 360

Posted by samzenpus from the watch-your-mouth dept.
mooterSkooter writes A 19-year-old Uk man has been arrested over an "offensive" tweet about an accident in which six people died. From the article: "The tweet, which has since been deleted along with the account that posted it, joked about the tragedy, in which the driver lost control of the vehicle and drove on the pavement, hitting Christmas shoppers 'like pinballs.' The tweet said: 'So a bin lorry has apparently driven in 100 people in Glasgow eh, probably the most trash it's picked up in one day.'"
The Internet

US Internet Offers 10Gbps Fiber In Minneapolis 110

Posted by samzenpus from the greased-lightning dept.
An anonymous reader writes Christmas came early in Minneapolis! U.S. Internet has announced that they are now offering 10 Gbps service to all of their existing fiber customers. Their prior top tier service was 1 Gbps. The article also goes on to state that they're actively working on rolling out 40 Gbps and 100 Gbps fiber service as well."

Submission + - DARPA wants help building a drone that flies like a hawk (computerworld.com) 1

Submitted by DillyTonto
DillyTonto writes: DARPA has put out a call for ideas on how to build a fast, autonomous, maneuverable UAV that can fly up to 45 mph, navigate without assistance from humans or GPS into and through buildings that are a labyrinth of stairwells, small rooms, narrow hallways and terrorists. DARPA wants this drone to fly like the bird in this awesome hawk POV video that shows it shooting through gaps narrow enough it has to tuck its wings to get through.
Games

Should Video Games Be In the Olympics? 232

Posted by Soulskill from the triathlon-should-be-swimming-cycling-and-zerging dept.
An anonymous reader writes: The BBC is running a story about e-sports and competitive video game. It's based on comments from Rob Pardo, formerly of Blizzard Entertainment, who says there's a good argument for having e-sports in the Olympics. He says video games are well positioned to be a spectator sport — an opinion supported by Amazon's purchase of Twitch.tv for almost a billion dollars. The main obstacle, says Pardo, is getting people to accept video games as a legitimate sport. "If you want to define sport as something that takes a lot of physical exertion, then it's hard to argue that videogames should be a sport, but at the same time, when I'm looking at things that are already in the Olympics, I start questioning the definition." The article notes, "Take chess, for instance. Supporters of the game have long called for its inclusion the Games, but the IOC has been reluctant, considering it a 'mind sport' and therefore not welcome in the Games." So, should the Games expand to include "mind sports" and video games?

Submission + - Google motion denied in lawsuit against Mississippi attorney general

Submitted by Anonymous Coward
An anonymous reader writes: A federal judge has denied Google's motion to block enforcement of a subpoena issued by Mississippi Attorney General Jim Hood that seeks information from Google about parts of its operations, including information about advertising for imported prescription drugs. Federal court records also show U.S. District Judge Henry T. Wingate put Google's response to the subpoena on hold until after the new year. Wingate scheduled a Feb. 13 hearing for further discussions on Google's motion. He asked attorneys for both sides to file new briefs in January.
Sony

Sony To Release the Interview Online Today; Apple Won't Play Ball 227

Posted by samzenpus from the watch-it-now dept.
An anonymous reader writes "The BBC reports: "Sony Pictures is to distribute its film The Interview online, after a cyber-attack and a row over its release. The film will be offered on a dedicated website — seetheinterview.com — as well as via Google and Microsoft services." Notably absent among the services to provide The Interview is Apple. The New York Times reports: "According to people briefed on the matter, Sony had in recent days asked the White House for help in lining up a single technology partner — Apple, which operates iTunes — but the tech company was not interested, at least not on a speedy time table. An Apple spokesman declined to comment. "

Submission + - Did North Korea Really Attack Sony? 1

Submitted by Anonymous Coward
An anonymous reader writes: Many security experts remain skeptical of North Korea's incolvment in the recent Sony hacks. Schneier writes: "Clues in the hackers' attack code seem to point in all directions at once. The FBI points to reused code from previous attacks associated with North Korea, as well as similarities in the networks used to launch the attacks. Korean language in the code also suggests a Korean origin, though not necessarily a North Korean one, since North Koreans use a unique dialect. However you read it, this sort of evidence is circumstantial at best. It's easy to fake, and it's even easier to interpret it incorrectly. In general, it's a situation that rapidly devolves into storytelling, where analysts pick bits and pieces of the "evidence" to suit the narrative they already have worked out in their heads."

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